1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a device for producing information cards on which various data such as personal information are recorded, and more particularly to an information card producing device intensively incorporating a plurality of recording units necessary for recording information on an information card, which includes one or more printer units for printing visible data such as letters, images and the like on the card, a magnetic encoder for magnetically recording various information data on the card, and an IC memory reader/writer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There have been adopted information card producing devices for the purpose of printing visible information such as letters, bar code patterns, pictures and the like on the surface of an information card serving as an information recording medium such as ID (identification) plastic cards, credit plastic cards and IC cards, and magnetically or electronically recording various information on a magnetic stripe formed on the surface of a card or a built-in IC memory. In most cases, thermal transfer printers have been conveniently used for printing the visible information such as images.
The thermal transfer printers are put to its proper use in accordance with types of information. That is, a thermal wax-transfer printer is applied for printing two-gradation (monochrome) images such as letters, and a dye-sublimation printer having excellent representability is suitable for printing multi-gradation color images such as a photograph. According to the usage of the information card, recording units including one or more thermal transfer printers and a magnetic encoder are needed for the information card producing device.
In a conventional information card producing device, the aforesaid recording units are arranged on the line along a straight and slender card path formed for transferring an information card while recording data on the card. Where the information data are required to be recorded on both sides of the card, the information card producing device is often provided with a means for turning the card upside down to record the information data on both surfaces of the card.
The information card producing device having the aforenoted recording units and card turning means is taught by, for instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,326,179 to Fukai et al. One example in which a protective film coating unit for thermally transferring a protective film onto the surface of a recording card is disposed in juxtaposition to a recording unit as noted above is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,220,343 to Takanashi et al. Thus, components which have been proposed so far can be assembled in the information card producing device as required for the purposes.
However, in any case, from the point of view of the function and structure of the conventional device, the constituent elements of the device such as the recording unit, magnetic encoder and protective film transferring means must be basically disposed straight on the line along a long card feeding path.
Thus, in order for providing the information card producing device with various functions, the card feeding path is required to be more elongated so as to arrange all the elements for fulfilling the desired functions on the straight line. That is, since the information card producing device fundamentally necessitates a blank card supply unit and a card discharge unit, it is simply surmised that the whole length of the device having printing units, magnetic encoder and card turning means becomes over at least four or five times as long as the length of the card. Accordingly, the device singularly lengthens compared with the width of the device and is made unsightly so much as to be incongruous with peripheral components as one of office automation equipments and so forth. Therefore, the long device becomes awkward to handle and not sufficiently unmarketable.
When an error in writing information data to the card occurs in the magnetic encoder at worst, such a faulty card should be rejected and selectively discharged to a portion other than a discharge portion to which rightly recorded cards are discharged. However, in the card producing device in which the component elements are arranged on the line along the straight card feeding path extending from a card entrance to a card exit, the card reject portion serving as a second card exit is difficult to dispose.
In general, an ordinary information card producing device is provided with a recording unit capable of printing or recording information data on one surface of the card. However, there are devices provided with card turning means for turning over the card so as to select one of the surfaces of the card according to the purposes for which the card is used as disclosed in the aforementioned U.S. Patents.
The card turning means is disposed on the card feeding path, and commonly comprises pairs of rollers for holding the card in turning. The card turning means however requires a complicated mechanism and highly skilled controlling technique for preventing the card held by the rollers from being dislocated during the turning operation. However, disadvantageously, the complicated card turning mechanism found in the conventional device suffers from operational inefficiency and instability, and inevitably turns out to be expensive.